Speakers at a webinar have emphasized ensuring safe food in the county to reduce the risk of Hypertension risk among people.
They expressed the importance of safe food for tackling NCDs like Hypertension and Cardiovascular diseases at the webinar marking World Food Safety Day organised by research and advocacy organisation PROGGA (Knowledge for Progress) with support from the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI), said a media release.
The World Food Safety Day -2022 was observed in the country on Tuesday as elsewhere in the globe with the theme ‘Safer food, better health’.
The day was of great importance for Bangladesh as the consumption of unsafe food is leading to an exponential rise in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and related mortality in the country.
The speakers said at present one in every five (21 percent) adults in Bangladesh is suffering from hypertension, and the intake of unsafe food is greatly responsible for it.
Hypertension causes increased risks of cardiovascular diseases while 277,000 people die of cardiovascular diseases each year in the country. Half of the women (51 percent) and two-thirds of men (67 percent) are not even aware of their hypertension conditions in Bangladesh, they said.
READ: More awareness needed to ensure safe food: Minister
Speakers shared at the webinar that, Bangladesh has pledged to achieve the target for NCD prevention by 2025 and the targets for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of 2030. The hypertension burden is a major hindrance in achieving these goals and targets.
According to the data of the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2019, hypertension is one of the three major risk factors for death and disability in Bangladesh.
Although the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) has already promulgated the ‘Controlling Trans Fatty Acids in Foodstuffs Regulation, 2021’, people are yet to pick the fruit of this great initiative as the regulation is yet to be implemented, they said.
BFSA member (Food Industry and Production) Dr. Md Abdul Alim, GHAI Bangladesh Country Lead Muhammad Ruhul Quddus, associate professor at the Department of Public Health and Informatics of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) Dr. Romen Raihan, director of the Center for Non-Communicable Disease and Nutrition at the BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health Professor Dr. Malay Kanti Mridha, upazila health & family planning officer at the Beanibazar Upazila Health Complex Dr. Md Delowar Hossain Shumon, hypertension control programme manager at the National Heart Foundation of Bangladesh Dr. Mahfuzur Rahman Bhuiyan, professor at the Department of Food Technology and Rural Industries of the Bangladesh Agricultural University Dr. Abdullah Iqbal, among others, were present at the webinar as discussants.
PROGGA’s coordinator Shihab Mahmud conducted the webinar.
Representatives of the Institute of Nutrition and Food Sciences (INFS) of the University of Dhaka, Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), Bangladesh Agro Processors Association (BAPA), BFSF, and Bangladesh Food and Nutrition Association (BAFNA), along with doctors, nutritionists, journalists and other people of various professions attended the programme.